


Pieces

by Zero2Nero



Series: Pieces [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-12-30 20:39:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18321962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zero2Nero/pseuds/Zero2Nero
Summary: Picking up the pieces of a dark childhood isn't easy in a workplace full of federal agents who can get inside of your mind better than you can. It's even harder containing your past as a self sabotaging up and coming musician who lost it all. Your wounds are healed, but what do you do with your scars?





	1. Sad girl

**Author's Note:**

> This story isn't for the light hearted. It follows in the second person and deals heavily with child abuse / molestation, alcoholism, drug use, self harm, and suicide. I'm writing this story to make myself feel better. To show that life goes on and that recovery isn't a linear thing. I've written this fic for all the others who've been through what I've been through. For what you've been through. If you're not stable, don't read this.  
> I don't condone any of the shit that I mentioned above. But it happens. And it's happened to me. So here's a story for all the fucked up souls that don't have any other fucked up reader inserts to gravitate towards. Things do get better.
> 
> And yes, you do eventually get together with Spencer.

 Feel the thrum of the strings press into your fingers, digging in deeper, until your tips are bloody and raw.

 The vibrations of the music rattles your bones, and every time you open your mouth to burst out the lyrics, you feel the bass in your teeth. Feel the taste of drums on your tongue. 

 Music is love and pain. Singing and writing about how fucked up you feel, and how fucked up you are. You get up on stage, sing your life story out to the masses. The masses who listen, who drink your words up like a dying man in a desert drinking up the chords and chorus.  

 Some of these people are as fucked up as you. Brothers in arms. Sisters in scars. But for others, your pain is chicken soup for the fucked up soul. They see and hear your pain, take it in and pretend it's them. They go home and laugh about it with their friends. Hug their mother and father good night. It's always mother and father for you. Not mom and dad. Sometimes just a name. 

 You get off the stage and feel exhilarated. You feel the change your music makes, the impact. Like you've finally done something, proven yourself. But the adrenaline is a drug that like all drugs, eventually fades into a distant grey noise all to soon. Then you get fucked up again to forget about it. 

 Booze, drugs, cutting. Whatever works, floats your boat. Puts your head in the clouds and the head in it's disassociative fucked up fugue you've perfected. 

 The music meant something. Once. But now your honest to god truth and venting, your pain has become nothing more than a fetish for the screaming fans. 

 Tell me your story. 

 Tell me about your life. 

 Tell me why you're so fucked up.

 Tell me w h y.

 When it got mainstream. That's when it happened. When you stopped loving the music and just accepting the pay check. You stopped fighting the producers on your lyrics. Started taking them hand fed to you like your daily medication. Stopped giving a damn. 

 Just another messed up kid who lived a messed up life. Became a messed up adult. Had a spark but lost it. Distressed kid goes on website, see's how romanticized self annihilating coping mechanisms. Saw how pretty the thin sickly arms were with bloody crusting cuts oozing dark sludge.

 Wanted to feel pretty.

 Wanted to be p r e t t y. 

 Sad girl gets into cutting. Gets into drugs with sad boy. Sad girl goes numb. Sad girl feels nothing. Sad girl is not okay. 

 The thing about cutting is that unlike drugs, you will always see the damage you've done to yourself.

 More mistakes = more cutting = more scars = more shame, guilt, remorse = more cutting. And the cycle goes on. 

 Lyrics float softly through your head and out of your vocal chords, roughly make it up to your consciousness in the clouds as your fingers nimbly pick the bridge. 

     _"It was a good thing gone bad_

_taken way to far_

_on a night to cold_

_to spend alone in a car,"_

 And as you sing the lyrics written in a time they were relevant, you are not okay. 


	2. Ad Movere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader has a startling link between a new case and their past. Can they overcome their own emotional turmoil to help kids in need?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has the same ole triggers. Sexual abuse mention talks about scars. I forgot to mention it last chapter, but this takes some time around season four.

_Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. Walter Anderson_

 

 Tentatively did Spencer look up from the desk where his files lay splayed out. Early morning light streamed in through the blinds covering the window. Dust particles waft through the air. Last he'd broken his concentration, the clock had read three-fifteen am. It now read seven-sixteen.

 The cause of his disturbance stood there in front of him, holding a tray of coffees piping hot from the bakery down the street. Setting it down on the desk by him, you sigh.

 "Is it to much to hope that you got an early start?" You ask him. Spencer nods.

"Yes, by about twelve hours," he responds, biting his bottom lip, his gaze still fixed on the papers in front of him. Gingerly, you move the clutter aside and slide a coffee in front of him. He blinks at the sudden intrusion, rubbing his eyes and rubbing his hands through messy hair.   
  
"You're a mess, why don't you go and take a nap on the break room couch before JJ gets here to brief us," you suggest. He protests weakly but quickly shuts up after seeing your steely gaze. He retracts to the break room sullenly. Posture slouched and slothful.   
  
The others trickle in soon after, crowding around the coffee you’ve brought in. Morgan claps you on your shoulder.   
  
“What would we do without you, sugar momma?” He asks.   
  
“Probably be drinking shitty break room coffee from the kitchen,” you quip back, walking over towards the brief room. Quickly everyone gets set up and ready for JJ to come back with the next case.   
  
“Where’s Reid?” Hotch asks to no one in particular, looking down at a file in his hands.   
  
“He pulled an all-nighter. Something didn’t sit right with him on the Bevin case. Told him to sleep it off on the couch,” you say, motioning towards the break room. Hotch looks up at you, his eyebrows raised.   
  
“I’ll allow it this once, but he needs to make sure his outside investigations don’t affect his work performance.” You nod, idly run your thumb beneath the long sleeve of your shirt and over a scar. Take a breath.   
  
JJ walks into the room, files stacked in her hands. She sets them down on the table and picks up the remote for the projector, clicks it on. Her demeanor is somber as the images flick on the screen.

“Albany, New York. Seven children between the ages of thirteen and nineteen have been found dead. Two stabbed, five strangled. All missing their right eyes. Forensics say the removal happened antemortem.” She clicks picture to picture, all of children, stabbed, strangled. Black, white, Asian. Boy, girl. They all vary. Your gaze lingers on a slide of one boy. Blood pools beneath him, looks to be fifteen, black, his remaining eye remains open. He seems to have been stabbed three times in the chest. Stomach sliced in various perfectly straight lines. Calculated. He lays in an alleyway.   
A girl with matted blonde hair and pale freckled skin stares into your eyes. Her remaining eye is green, purple compliments her neck in bruising bursts.  
  
“None of these victims look the same,” Prentiss notes. “They range in age, race, weight, gender. This unsub doesn’t seem to have a preference.”   
  
“Just that they’re teenagers,” Morgan interjects.   
  
“Homeless. That’s what all of these kids had in common.” JJ says. “None lived with any close friends or relatives, rather had been checked in at various teen shelters. Some had been known to sleep in alleyways, abandoned properties, and benches. We’ve had several with priors. All for trespassing in public places after hours, sleeping in parks.”

“So this is a crime of opportunity. The unsub takes these kids, people no one are going to miss for a while, kills em. But why?” Morgan asks. Everyone is silent for a moment. Taking in the severity of the situation.   
  
“If it were a crime of opportunity why would the unsub go after those boys? Most opportunistic killers go after weaker targets. They spook at the first sign of a fight. The first boy’s six foot three, the other just a few inches shorter. They weren’t weak.” Rossi says, breaking the silence after having been quiet most of the time.   
  
“Signs of struggle were minimum. More with the ones who were strangled then stabbed.” JJ says, flipping through more pictures. The bruises on all of their necks are thick, mottled. Their eyes bulge, mouth open in slight O shapes as if surprised by their imminent demise.   
  
“Maybe they knew the killer,” Hotch adds. “Let the unsub get close enough to them until they were within strangling range. Were there any signs of sexual trauma?” He asks.   
  
“Timothy Moore our first stabbing victim, Angela Davis, Skylar Cooke, and Tiffany Nguyen. All strangled.” JJ says.   
Angela Davis was a pretty girl. A smile plastered on her face in a reference photo next to her body. Her eyes once a charming hazel were now staring emptily into the void. Skylar Cooke was the girl on the previous slide, her hair in her yearbook picture from the year before was in a shorter bob. Wearing a hoodie and fingerless gloves, staring defiantly in the camera. A gap between her two front teeth. Tiffany Nguyen had her hair in a short undercut, her hair slightly spiked. Dyed green, blue, purple. Mascara rung her eyes, She wore a loose and weathered leather jacket. Timothy had been a handsome boy, trophy winning smile. Baseball star, straight A student. The model child. How had he ended up on the street, you ask yourself?

“So half of them were sexually assaulted. Half weren’t. None like the last. Does this seem explicitly sexually motivated?” Morgan asks the room, his eyes staring intensely at the board.   
  
“Well, based on the strength needed for strangulating those other two boys, and the height needed to stab Timothy Moore downward in the chest it seems our unsub is male. Until we get back DNA on the biological material found in the sexually assaulted victims, he may or may not be the one assaulting them,” Rossi says.   
Prentis pipes up, “but do you really think that it’s a coincidence that half of our victims have been sexually assaulted, doesn’t it mean it’s the same guy?” She asks.   
Morgan retorts, “ Street kids often resort to selling themselves in order just make ends meet. That paired with the lawlessness in homeless camps and shelters, molestation and rape statistics are high in the homeless teen population. If Reid were here he could give us the exact number. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the same guy.” The room is filled with idle conversation speculating about the logistics of the unsub. Your stomach churns looking at those kids. Burns. You were the,. Lived their lives. And now they’re targets of some sick fuck playing to god knows what.   
  
“Their eyes,” you say quietly, your voice getting caught partially in your throat. “Their eyes were left open. Purposefully so.” You finish. Everyone goes quiet.   
  
“Eyes closed usually shows, sorrow, guilt. The chances of all of them dying with their eyes open isn’t favourable. He makes sure that they see what he’s done to them. Won’t let them rest. He has no remorse for them,” Reid says, having joined the room quietly. He leans on a wall behind the table, his eyes heavy with sleep deprivation. Everyone turns to look at him.   
  
“He’s not killing them because he thinks he’s doing them a kindness by getting them off the street. Not saving them.” You say, swallowing thickly. Your mouth has gone dry. You want to take a drink of coffee. Get rid of this apathetic pit in your stomach attempting to protect you from the images on the screen. But you don’t want to play your hand anymore than you have. Keep them close, but not close enough to see you. The real you.  
  
Your eyes look up to the screen. Timothy Moore had been flicked to Katrina Voss. Average looking girl, shiny black hair, dark soulful eyes, a mole on the left side of her nose. Sixteen. The same age as when you used to roam the streets. Your eyes travel to the gashes lining her torso, also expertly cut straight. Also stabbed three times in the chest. Your mind’s taken back.  
  
A flick of his wrist, his knife glinting from the faint street light outside of the alley. Closer. Always one step closer. One at a time he comes closer to you. Your back is pressed upon the end of the alleyway, sandwiched between two buildings. Brick grinds into the holes of your worn shirt. Bites the sensitive exposed skin. Grit grinding against your back and into your hair.   
  
He tells you how it must be his lucky day. His breath smells harshly of stale food. Your eyes can’t meet his face. Won’t look at him, or acknowledge that this is happening. Because this isn’t happening. It can’t. The trauma factory is closed for renovations. Won’t be open again anytime soon. Sorry, but we won’t be taking any more big projects on. No more ouchies, boo-boos.   
  
Your eyes dart around, desperately looking for someone. Anyone who could help you. But you’re in a dark alleyway. But it’s two am. But no one is on the street to hear you. Snow has piled up in drifts throughout the city. Muffling your small, shallow screams you manage to pant out. Fear taking hold of your vocal cords.   
He steps closer, putting his arm on the wall beside your head, his knife positioned in the other hand pointing toward your stomach. Close your eyes, Squeeze the shut. Tune up the outside and turn on the static inside, block out the noise.   
  
Two things happen then. Just as you’re reaching equilibrium, balancing out the good with the forgotten, blanking this out already, your assailant falls to the ground. A metal clang rings out through the air. Looking up from the man on the ground stands an angel over him. 5’1, tattered hoodie with an old Ramones T-shirt peeking out beneath. Her hickory hair kinks up above her shoulders.

In her hands is a rusty metal trash can that she must have procured further down the alley. In his distracted state, he must not have heard her coming.  
She leans down, picks up his knife. Quickly frisks him, comes up with a wallet, car keys, phone, some gum. Her breath comes out in puffs, and quickly she brings her boot down and kicks his head, just enough force to ensure that he stays out and on the ground.   
  
She motions for you to run out of the alley with her, you do so numbly. She clicks on the fob of his car keys. A white Kia down the road blinks amid the piles of snow.   
  
“Terry,” she says breathlessly. Holding out her hand for you to shake. She motions towards the Kia. “Let’s have some fun,” she says, a mischievous grin lining her face.

“Helloooooo?” Prentiss asks you, leaning over the table and waving a hand in front of your face. “Earth to Y/N. You okay?” She asks you. You manage to nod.   
  
“Sorry,” you say. “It just kind of gets to me sometimes. The kids. Like that.” You say weakly. “I know I should have a thicker skin about it after working here, but there’s something about it. I don’t know.” You mumble out. Everyone’s eyes are on you.   
  
“I’d frankly be concerned if anyone here didn’t show some level of concern in a situation like this. It’s understandable if you’d like to sit this one out,” Hotch says, putting his hand on your shoulder. You shake your head. Tell him you’re fine.   
  
“That’s why we have to find the sick bastard who’s done this,” Morgan says. You know he’s right. You have to help avenge these kids. No matter what.   
You lounge in your house later that night. Dog in your lap, show on the TV. Trying to divorce the events of the day from the here and now. The plane flies out at first light in the morning. The lights are off in your cozy little house. Covered in a fuzzy blanket all is right in the world. Your phone rings.  
  
You look down, check the caller ID. It says, “Doc.” You answer.   
  
“Hey,” Spencer says on the other line. “We need to talk.”   
  



End file.
